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Some of them pretty, some of them pests. Questions answered
By Jim Chatfield
Special to the Beacon Journal
Published on Saturday, Aug 23, 2008
The late-season, salmon-colored joe-pye wildflowers mingle with the electric-purple ironweed blooms along roadsides. The red-headed pine sawfly larvae lunch on this year's needle crop of mugho pine, adding insult to injury to the European pine sawfly munching on last year's needle crop earlier this spring.
The tar spot of maple fungus is a late-summer visitor to the landscape, joining the anthracnose of maple fungus that infected leaves during the moist, wet weather in spring. Nature marches on, and your gardening questions keep on coming as well. Here are a few of the latest.
Q: What are some trees that do well in Ohio in shady sites?
A: I was recently asked that question, but it is also one posed in the Back Pocket Gardener, a partnership publication of the Ohio Nursery and Landscape Association and the Ohio State University Extension Nursery Landscape and Turf Team. Some great trees for shady sites include hedge maple (Acer campestre), Japanese maple (Acer palmatum), serviceberry (Amelanchier), redbud (Cercis canadensis), American beech (Fagus grandiflora), sweetbay magnolia (Magnolia virginiana), and Canadian hemlock (Tsuga canadensis). Sweetbay magnolias are attractive throughout the seasons, including right now, as the unusual oblong fruits reveal their ripening bright red seeds within. Back Pocket Gardener publications can be purchased from ONLA at http://buckeyegardening.com.
Q: You said the ''Dolgo'' crab apple butter your wife makes has a beautiful ruby red color instead of the darker brown molasses color typical of traditional apple butter? Is this an exaggeration?
A: For real, the ruby-red color of the Dolgo peels is preserved in the production and adds to the appeal of this most wondrous condiment. I will even add a culinary combination I recently discovered. A sourdough roll with some chicken cordon bleu, oozing ham and cheese — and a dollop of Dolgo crab apple butter. Magnifique!
Q: What is causing my horse-chestnut leaves to look burned?
A: Horse chestnuts and buckeyes are susceptible to a fungal disease known as Guignardia leaf blotch. It gets started in spring, but becomes really noticeable by midsummer, especially if May and June were wet, which certainly was the case this year in Northeast Ohio. Symptoms include brick-red to brown discoloration on the leaves, often surrounded by a yellowish halo, which sometimes consumes large portions of the leaves, making them look like someone arrived with a blow torch. It is not a pretty sight, but the plant can tolerate a good bit of this later-season leaf damage and even defoliation. Fungicides applied in spring and early summer can keep the disease down to a dull roar, but they are rarely used.
A more sustainable approach is to plant more resistant types of buckeyes and horse chestnuts. Common European horse chestnut and some of the hybrids of horse chestnut and buckeye are the most susceptible, Ohio buckeye less so, yellow buckeye even less, red buckeye (a smaller tree) not very susceptible to Guignardia leaf blotch at all, and the wonderful spreading shrub bottlebrush buckeye rarely exhibits any of this disease.
Q: What is all this slippery, sooty stuff on the boardwalk?
A: I was asked this the other day at Johnson Woods Nature Preserve near Orrville. The boardwalk trail does indeed have some patches of sticky, dark gray substance, and if you look, you will see there are similar patches on the forest floor. If you come for a hike, and you should come today to this outstanding woods, notice that these patches are always under beech trees. Also notice that up above the patches, on the branches of the beeches, there are masses of white fluffy insects. If you get a few feet from these cottony masses, you will notice that they start wiggling boogie-woogie-like, back and forth, in unison.
You have just discovered beech blight aphids. Their name sounds more serious than their actual damage. They are not serious pests of beeches in terms of plant health, but they are seriously curious to children and childlike adults. The aphids suck beech tree sap, then excrete the sap, which we politely term ''honeydew'' rather than insect pee, and then the honeydew that falls to the boardwalk or forest floor below becomes colonized by a sooty mold fungus that feeds on the honeydew. Quite a show on a Saturday afternoon.
Jim Chatfield is a horticultural educator with Ohio State University Extension. If you have questions about caring for your garden, write: Plant Lovers' Almanac, Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309-0640. Include your phone number.
The late-season, salmon-colored joe-pye wildflowers mingle with the electric-purple ironweed blooms along roadsides. The red-headed pine sawfly larvae lunch on this year's needle crop of mugho pine, adding insult to injury to the European pine sawfly munching on last year's needle crop earlier this spring.
Get the full article here.
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